The 2013 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament was played from March 23 through April 9, 2013. Tennessee continued its streak of making every NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament at 32 consecutive appearances. Kansas made the Regional Semifinals for the second year in a row as a double-digit seed, UConn made it into the Final Four for the sixth consecutive year, the longest such streak, and Louisville became the first team seeded lower than fourth in a region to advance to the championship game. For the first time in tournament history, the same four teams were #1 seeds as in the previous year.

Subregionals

The format is similar to the Men's Tournament, except that there are 64 teams; this in turn means there is no "First Four" round. Thirty-one automatic bids for conference champions and 33 at-large bids are available.

The subregionals will be played from March 23 through March 26. Sites chosen to host first- and second-round games in 2013 include:

A regional had been scheduled at Sun National Bank Center in Trenton, New Jersey. However, the NCAA moved the regional to Connecticut because of a recently passed state law allowing single-game betting for professional and collegiate games. NCAA rules do not allow tournament events to be held in states that allow single-game betting.

The Final Four will be held on April 7 & 9 at the New Orleans Arena in New Orleans, hosted by the University of New Orleans. This is the third time the Final Four will be played in New Orleans. The event was held in this city in 1991, at the Kiefer Lakefront UNO Arena. The event returned to the city in 2004, when the games were held at the New Orleans Arena.

Tournament records

Points in a Final Four game—Connecticut scored 93 points against Louisville in the Championship game, tied for the second most number of points scored in a Final Four game

Winning margin—Connecticut defeated Louisville 93–60 in the Championship game; the margin of 33 points is the largest in Final Four history

Three pointers made—Connecticut hit 13 three pointers in the Championship game which is the most ever made in a Final Four game

Assists—Connecticut recorded 24 assists in the Championship game against Louisville, the most ever recorded in a Final Four game since the NCAA began recording assists in 1985. (Broken by Connecticut in 2014)

Blocked shots—Connecticut recorded 12 blocked shots in the Championship game against Louisville; the most ever recorded in a Final Four game

Three pointer percentage—Breanna Stewart hit seven of her eight three point attempts in the final two games, the percentage of 87.5% is the highest recorded in the two Final Four games.

Automatic qualifiers

The following teams were automatic qualifiers for the 2013 NCAA field by virtue of winning their conference's tournament (except for the Ivy League, whose regular-season champion received the automatic bid).

Tournament seeds

Kentucky vs. Navy, Oklahoma State vs. Duke, and Notre Dame vs. Iowa aired on ESPNU. Purdue vs. Louisville aired on ESPNEWS. All other first and second round games aired on ESPN2

Oklahoma City Regional

Almost all first-round games were won by the higher-seeded team except for Creighton, the 10 seed who upset Syracuse 61–56. The top seed, Baylor won easily, by 42 points over Prairie View A&M. The only other game within single digit margin was 6 seed Oklahoma beating Central Michigan by five points.

In the second round, three of the four games followed expectations, with the only upset being the 5 seed Louisville over 4 seed Purdue. In the third round, 2 seed Tennessee beat 6 seed Oklahoma as expected, but Louisville upset top seeded Baylor in a result some have called one of the greatest upsets in women's basketball history. Baylor won the National Championship in 2012, going undefeated during the season, and had returned every starter. While they lost one game in the current regular season, point guard Odyssey Sims was injured early in that game. The team had not lost a game in two years when playing at full strength. Louisville, the third best team in the Big East, hit sixteen of 25 three point attempts, and held Griner to 14 points, after she had averaged 33 points in the first two games.

Bracket

* – Denotes overtime period

All-Tournament Team

Breanna Stewart, Connecticut

Bria Hartley, Connecticut

Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, Connecticut

Kelly Faris, Connecticut

Antonita Slaughter, Louisville

Game officials

Dennis DeMayo (Semi-Final)

Charles Gonzalez (Semi-Final)

Felicia Grinter (Semi-Final)

Dee Kantner (Semi-Final)

Tina Napier (Semi-Final)

Mark Zentz (Semi-Final)

Denise Brooks (Final)

Lisa Mattingly (Final)

Brenda Pantoja (Final)

Television

ESPN has US television rights to all games during the tournament. For the first and second round, ESPN airs select games nationally on ESPN, ESPNU, or ESPNews. All other games are aired regionally on ESPN or ESPN2 and streamed online via ESPN3. Most of the nation gets whip-a-round coverage during this time, which allows ESPN to rotate between the games and focus on the nation on the one that is the closest. The regional semifinals are split between ESPN and ESPN2, and ESPN airs the regional finals, national semifinals, and championship match.

Studio host and analysts

Kevin Negandhi (Host)

Kara Lawson (Analyst)

Carolyn Peck (Analyst)

Radio

Dial Global Sports has exclusive radio rights from the regional finals on through the championship.